Insights on Sufism by E. L. Levin

Tag Archives: religion

The path has many components and, depending on your proclivities, certain components are easier for you and certain components are harder for you. The path consists of formal rituals: ritual prayer, ritual recitations, ritual fasting, holiday celebrations, and attendance at formal community gatherings such as Jumu’ah. And then there’s another part, and that part has […]

As we sojourn through this existence we enter into many different phases in our life and many different situations in our life. We start out as infants who are totally dependent on our mother for sustenance, and for care, and we stay in that state of dependency for quite a few years. We then enter […]

At the core of Islam, and at the core of Sufism, Tasawwuf, is the idea of unity. On the one hand we have illusion and on the other hand we have haqq. Now, illusion is incapable of being unified because it’s illusory and it’s duplicitous. Satan is the hallmark of duplicity. Satan does his work […]

Imagine along the coastline, like we have on the east coast of the US, and imagine many different harbors, and many different boats. Now, just because they come from different harbors, does not indicate where they’re going, it just indicates where they’re starting. The ocean has to be crossed, and it doesn’t matter which harbor […]

Man is a fragile creature and susceptible to many different influences and diseases; diseases of the body and diseases of the mind. And all of these can incapacitate him to the point of his being totally unable to function within the world. Now, functioning means more than one thing. For instance, when a psychiatrist labels […]

Perception is a big part of our existence. We perceive and we draw conclusions, and the conclusions that we draw have impact on us. Not everybody draws the same conclusions from the same set of circumstances; not everybody sees things the same way. There’s an app now called Fandango, which has to do with movies, […]

After Medina and Mecca became adversaries, while the Prophet was living in Medina, and Mecca kept attacking Medina, an Arab came to the Prophet and said to him, “Place a curse on the Arabs in Mecca.” And the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, responded, “I did not come into this world as a […]

Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, or 0 degrees Centigrade. That means that at 33 degrees Fahrenheit water isn’t frozen. It may be cold but it’s not ice. It means at 32.1 degrees it’s not frozen. Frozen is an altered state of water, and water doesn’t know frozen until it’s frozen, so for water to […]

Most countries have laws. For the most part, the criminal statutes within a country tell you what not to do, and the punishment for what happens if you do those things. They’re quite explicit and quite technical as to defining crimes, and explaining what happens if you commit those crimes. You could call it a […]

If you bring a suit, a legal action, against someone through your attorney, the papers go to that other person and they get an attorney. And the matter, before it goes any further, goes through a period of what’s called “discovery”. Discovery gives you the right to ask questions of the other party within a […]